On a communication network (e.g., the Internet), a router is typically a device that determines the next network point to which a packet should be forwarded so that the packet can reach its destination. The router is located at any gateway of at least two different networks and permits the connected different networks to communicate with each other. A router may create or maintain a table of the available routes and their conditions, and use this information (along with distance and cost algorithms) to determine the best route for a given packet. Typically, a packet may travel through a number of network points with routers before arriving at its destination. Routing is a function associated with the Network Layer (layer 3) in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model which is the standard model of network programming.
A router is required to advertise its presences in a network. The router advertises at periodic time intervals in order to indicate that it is the dedicated router for that particular network. The advertisement from a router typically includes well defined addresses and messages.
Additionally, when a client (or other host node) is booted up and connected in the network, the client will query the network for information about the dedicated router. The dedicated router will answer to this query from the client by responding with an advertisement to the client. As mentioned above, this advertisement will indicate that the router is the dedicated router for that particular network.
The advertisement function is performed by the central processing unit (CPU) of the router. In a flat layer 2 network with a large number of connected host nodes, the multiple queries from the host nodes may disadvantageously present a high burden on the CPU of the router. The load on the CPU of the router is increased because the CPU is required to respond to multiple queries by nodes that are requesting for router information.
Therefore, the current technology is limited in its capabilities and suffers from at least the above constraints and deficiencies.